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This weekend, Governor Inslee announced he would forego mandating a low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) as part of the agreement on a transportation package. The environmental community had been making a last-ditch push on the LCFS, including taking out ads and an e-mail blitz to their members.

The primary talking point has been that an LCFS would improve air quality and reduce asthma. That claim, however, is not supported by any science, including the Governor's own reports.

Over the past year, there have been many claims about ocean acidification and the impact on oysters. Many of those claims have withered under scrutiny. Taylor Shellfish is on the front line of dealing with environmental issues facing oyster growers. They agreed to answer questions about the current state of science and what they are facing. What follows are their answers and do not reflect our views.

Yesterday was another warm, beautiful day in Seattle. The high temperature was seven degrees more than the average. This temperature is toward the highest end of projections from the IPCC for 2100. Again, if we expected to see air quality impacts due to rising temperatures, we might expect to see some evidence yesterday.

Here is the air quality chart for the Puget Sound area from yesterday afternoon:

Yesterday, we noted that temperatures during the last two weeks have been significantly above average, about 11 degrees F during that period. One of the claims about rising temperatures associated with global warming is that air quality will worsen significantly, causing health and other problems.

We decided to share the actual air quality impact of these warm temperatures day by day to test the accuracy of these projections.

Temperatures cooled off a bit on June 16, but were still about three degrees above normal. That models to temperatures expected in about 2050.

Among the arguments made by those pushing a costly cap-and-trade carbon emissions policy is the claim that higher temperatures will bring big increases in air pollution. Both the Washington Environmental Council and Puget Sound Sage have recently used air pollution as a justification for pushing these polices.

Having failed to garner enough support from House Democrats, the Governor’s cap-and-trade bill now enters what has become a traditional phase for cap-and-trade legislation: the Big Buyoff. A new version of the cap-and-trade proposal was released this week, this time with hundreds of millions of dollars intended for selected industries to earn the votes of particular representatives.

This is a familiar pattern for cap-and-trade. The examples are plentiful.

Math errors. Exaggerations. Phony metrics. Trickle-down economics. The recent e-mail from JJ McCoy of the Seattle Electric Vehicle Association to the legislature has it all.

Electric car advocates in Washington state are again asking for a sales tax break on top of the existing federal tax credit they receive of $7,500. Their sales tax break costs the state about $10 million a year. To put that in context, that is about one-quarter of the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board’s annual funding.

Today's guest post is from Wendy Purnell. Currently, she is the Director of Outreach at PERC, the Property and Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana. For six years, she worked with Paso Pacífico, learning everything she knows about sea turtles from their dedicated rangers.

Tomorrow is Earth Day, and activists, politicians and the media will push for policies they say will reduce our environmental impact. Often, it is simply assumed these policies will work and the only question is whether we have the "will" to adopt them.

Actually, the environmental left has a terrible record when it comes to environmental predictions and effectiveness. Repeatedly, their policies fail or even increase environmental damage to our planet. Their policy announcements are applauded, but their policy failures are rarely highlighted.

Today's guest blog is from Dr. Kay Jones. Dr. Jones is a retired U.S. Public Health Service officer. He served as the senior advisor for air quality at the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) under the Ford and Carter administrations. He was responsible for initiating the national program to investigate the effects of acid rain.

House Democrats released their budget today and the revenue from the Governor's proposed cap-and-trade carbon policy is not included. Bills necessary to implement the budget are never truly dead, but the exclusion of cap-and-trade from the House budget means the Governor's carbon policy is fundamentally dead.

Now that Lacey, Olympia, Tumwater and unincorporated areas of Thurston County have implemented a ban on plastic grocery bags, Thurston County Solid Waste completed a study of what kind of grocery bag residents now use. The results show the ban has likely increased emissions of greenhouse gases and increased water pollution that contributes to "dead zones" in the ocean.

"What does that mean for real people? For a start, it imperils the health of Washington state residents." That is the way Sen. Pramila Jayapal described clauses in the Senate transportation package requiring legislative approval for a low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS).